Want to master Google?

Have meager resources? Read-on. Companies that have their revenue model largely concentrated on e-commerce, or those with a constrained budget, have found a reliable friend in the WWW (World Wide Web). Many companies that like to complement their main-line (or above-the-line) spends have also started using the internet as a key alternative medium.

Key reasons for this shift are: - Internet penetration is growing and is about 60 million (about 6% of India’s population) today - Most in urban areas have easy access to the internet due to falling broadband prices and new products that give wireless access - Library of information that can be "Googled"

The internet and the mobile were recently voted as a medium people can’t live without. Higher than television!

It’s all about Relevancy Anyone who makes a living off communication knows the importance of relevancy. No advertising can be worth its quality if it’s talking to its target market at a point when the category is not relevant to their frame of mind. It would be useless for me to talk about online bus tickets when someone is sitting at a café. However, it could be extremely relevant when they are "Googling" for bus tickets or when they are waiting for their bus at a bus stand. Even average advertising messages can do wonders when it’s delivered at the right time.

This is where companies can and must leverage the net. Search has changed the way people use the net. Majority of the net-surfing population uses Google as the gateway to their internet exploratory journey. The way Google is engineered it gives companies with a genuinely good product an excellent chance to reach out to their customers without incurring a cost, or incurring minimal cost.

I have concentrated on Google in the article because anyone trying their hand at internet marketing must master this search engine more and before any other. If you have Google covered, you can go to sleep.

Search Concepts Two important concepts one needs to master are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). In simple terms when someone searches for online bus tickets on Google, the results that pop-up are ranked by Google based on relevancy. The most relevant site with information on online bus tickets will be featured right on top. Since users know that Google’s searches are relevant, they will usually consider the first 4 sites only (unless the sites don’t have what the user is looking for). To ensure that you show up right at the beginning, you have to OPTIMIZE your site so that Google considers you to be most relevant in terms of that particular keyword phrase (online bus tickets). This process is called SEO.

When someone does a search for online bus tickets, they will notice some ads on the right-hand of the page. These are sponsored results. This means that companies have advertised their products for that particular keyword phrase. In their quest for relevancy, Google ensures that they will only show your ad when it’s relevant to the user’s search. For this, the company has to choose the keywords they want to show up for and have to bid a rate. Using some fair calculations Google decides whose ad shows up right on top. In case your ad is clicked more than that of competitors, Google lowers the cost per click for you and in all likelihood you will show up above your competitor, assuming that both of you have the same bid. This, in short, is called Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

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